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JOHN 


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Philadelphia 

The  John  C.  Winston  Co. 

1923 


JAMES  A.  MONTGOMERY 

Professor  in  the  Philadelphia  Divinity  School 
and  the  University  of  Pennsylvania 


.  JUN  9  1941  , 

Logical 


The  Origin  of  the  Qospel 


According  to  St.  John 


JAMES  A.  MONTGOMERY 


Professor  in  the  Philadelphia  Divinity  School 
and  the  University  of  Pennsylvania 


Philadelphia 

The  John  C.  Winston  Co. 

l923 


IN  MEMORY  OF  OUR  COLLEAGUE 


ANDREW  D.  HEFFERN 

DOCTOR  OF  DIVINITY 


CHRISTIAN  AND  SCHOLAR 


PREFACE 

This  paper  was  prepared  for  and  presented  to  the  May 
meeting  of  the  Philadelphia  Clericus,  a  private  club  of  clergy  of 
the  Episcopal  Church.  My  colleagues  were  very  indulgent  in 
listening  to  the  somewhat  ponderous  thesis  and  kindly  in  their 
discussion  of  it.  Some ’of  the  members  desired  to  see  the  paper 
in  print,  and  generously  offered  to  have  it  published.  At  first  I 
demurred,  as  I  felt  that  my  sole  purpose  was  accomplished  in 
that  presentation  of  the  essay  and  that  my  reward  lay  in  their 
acceptance  of  it.  However,  it  is  herewith  evident  that  I  yielded 
to  my  friends’  insistence. 

In  doing  so  I  determined  that  I  would  leave  the  paper  as  I 
read  it,  with  no  essential  changes,  making  only  a  very  few  additions 
which  had  since  come  to  my  mind  independently,  and  unloading 
the  Greek  citations  as  much  as  possible.  I  am  aware  that  such  a 
theme  is  worthy  of  a  book,  but  I  am  not  so  conscious  that  the 
present  writer  is  so  worthy.  “Of  making  many  books  there  is  no 
end”  in  Johannine  criticism,  and  I  feel  that  I  have  said  what  I 
have  to  say  and  in  the  way  I  wished  to  say  it.  I  am  quite  skep¬ 
tical  whether  another  book  is  necessary,  whereas,  perhaps,  a 
brief  monograph  like  this  may  be  readable  and  useful  for  laymen 
in  the  subject.  Its  inadequacy  may  be  compensated  for  by  its 
compactness  and,  I  trust,  a  certain  spontaneous  freshness  of  view. 

For  the  essay  is  wholly  an  independent  study,  undertaken 
primarily  for  my  own  and  my  colleagues’  satisfaction.  Last 
October  I  decided  to  prepare  the  paper,  and  had  my  main  theme 
in  mind,  when,  just  two  weeks  later,  appeared  the  notice  of  Pro¬ 
fessor  Burney’s  new  book,  The  Aramaic  Origin  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  I  at  once  procured  it,  but  have  not  read  it  at  all,  and  do 
not  know  its  argumentation,  even  now  as  I  write  this  Preface. 
I  have  equally  ignored  all  the  commentators  on  the  Gospel,  all 
the  handbooks  and  monographs  relating  thereto,  applying  myself 
to  purely  philological  helps  and  to  such  knowledge  as  I  had  at 
hand,  and  such  references  as  have  chanced  my  way.  Accordingly 
I  can  justly  speak  of  independence  and  freshness.  Much  will  be 
desiderated  by  the  critical  reader.  I  have  avoided  the  problems 
of  textual  criticism,  confining  myself,  unless  otherwise  indicated, 
to  the  text  of  Westcott-Hort  (abbreviated  as  WH),  as  also  the 
problem  of  the  integrity  and  original  order  of  the  Gospel.  Con¬ 
troversy  with  other  positions  would  have  swollen  the  paper  to 
an  inordinate  size  and  destroyed  its  value  to  those  I  wish  to 
reach.  If  such  read  it,  I  am  satisfied.  If  expert  critics  notice  it 
with  praise  or  blame,  I  am  more  than  complimented. 

Philadelphia,  June  8,  1923.  James  A.  Montgomery. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

1.  Geographical  Data .  5 

2.  Historical  Data .  7 

3.  Data  bearing  on  Jewish  Institutions . .  9 

4.  The  Aramaic  Background  of  the  Gospel .  12 

a.  Greek  interpretations  of  Semitic  words .  13 

b.  Aramaic  idioms  in  words  and  phrases .  14 

c.  Idioms  of  predicate  construction .  17 

d.  Possible  evidence  for  an  Aramaic  original .  20 

5.  The  Theology  of  the  Gospel .  23 

Conclusion .  30 


N 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  JOHN 

This  essay  is  written  with  the  purpose  of  probing  the  value  of 
“the  Fourth  Gospel’ ’  as  an  historical  document.  It  is  written 
by  one  who  is  utterly  inexpert  in  Johannine  criticism.  It  would 
confront  the  theory  that  appears  to  obtain  among  intelligent 
laymen  in  the  subject,  a  theory  that  has  filtered  down — how  far 
correctly  I  am  not  prepared  to  say — from  the  treatment  of  that 
Gospel  by  expert  scholars. 

This  prevailing  theory  may  be  stated  as  follows.  The 
Gospel  is  a  non-Palestinian  product,  probably  of  Anatolian 
(Asia  Minor)  origin — so  far  the  ecclesiastical  tradition  of  a  John 
of  Ephesus  may  be  accepted;  it  is  essentially  Hellenic,  not  Judaic, 
in  style  and  language  and  thought.  It  is  late  in  composition, 
removed  by  some  generations  from  that  of  the  Lord.  In  a  word, 
it  is  a  romance.  It  contains  possibly  some  correct  historical 
traditions,  but  at  second  or  third  hand;  yet  this  element  of 
history  is  overwhelmed  by  an  artificial  construction  of  fact  and 
atmosphere  which  wholly  distorts  the  historical  kernel. 

The  essay  would  meet  one  article  of  that  thesis:  Is  the 
Gospel  a  Palestinian  product  or  not?  My  question  involves 
neither  composition  in  Palestine,  nor  date  of  the  composition, 
nor  problem  of  authorship.* 1  If  it  is  a  product  alien  to  Palestine, 
its  scenery,  history,  language  and  religion,  the  correctness  of  its 
evangelical  tradition  must  be  rigorously  criticized,  if  not  dis¬ 
counted.  If  on  the  other  hand  it  can  be  shown  to  correspond 
to  the  historical  Palestinian  milieu  which  it  professes  to  present, 
the  current  theory  of  the  Gospel  must  be  subjected  to  equal 
criticism. 

My  present  thesis  will  be  found  to  work  out  in  the  direction 
of  the  establishment  of  the  Palestinian  origin  of  the  Gospel — 


1 1  may  have  academically  “declassed”  myself  by  using  the  name 
“Gospel  of  St.  John”  in  the  title.  I  have  done  so  advisedly,  but,  I  would 
have  it  understood,  without  any  reference  to  the  authorship,  which  theme 

I  in  no  way  touch  upon.  I  frankly  think  that  “Fourth  Gospel”  is  a  scholastic 
affectation.  Why  not  the  First,  Second,  and  Third  Gospels?  Are  we  any 
surer  of  their  authors?  Any  tyro  knows  that  Deuteronomy  is  not  “the 
Second  Giving  of  the  Law”,  but  are  we  obliged  to  make  constant  profession 
of  our  critical  attainments  by  calling  that  document  the  Fifth  Book  of  Pseudo- 
Moses? 


3 


Palestinian  in  the  sense  that  the  writer  was  a  well-informed 
Palestinian,  wherever  his  habitat  when  he  wrote  the  book.  I 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  writer  possessed  a  true  memory 
of  the  Palestine  of  the  first  half  of  the  first  century.  My  purpose 
and  my  method  are  philological.  Theologumena  enter  only  as 
historical  data.  I  do  not  moot  the  question  of  the  veracity  of 
the  Gospel  in  its  presentation  of  the  life  of  the  Lord  and  in  its 
handling  of  his  alleged  teaching.  Those  questions  are  for  the 
theologian.  But  neither  prejudice  nor  extreme  of  theological 
finesse  in  reconstructions  of  the  Gospel,  in  the  way  of  telling  us 
how  the  Gospel  must  have  been  written,  can  avoid  the  philological 
data,  which  are  fundamental  to  both  criticism  and'  theology. 

In  my  procedure  I  will  begin  with  the  material  element  of 
geography;  I  will  then  consider  the  historical  data,  continuing 
with  the  picture  presented  of  the  Jewish  Church.  Next  comes  a 
study  of  the  language  of  the  book,  inquiring  into  its  possibly 
Palestinian  and  Aramaic  character;  this  is  nty  only  original 
contribution  to  the  subject  in  hand.  And  finally  I  inquire  into 
the  theological  terms  and  ideas  of  the  book — not  how  far  they 
represent  the  Jesus  one  might  wish  to  reconstruct,  but  how  far 
they  are  representative  of  the  Palestinian  Judaism  of  the  early 
generations  of  the  first  century. 


4 


1.  GEOGRAPHICAL  DATA 


It  is  only  necessary  briefly  to  recall  the  wealth  and  detail 
of  the  Johannine  geography,  which  is  in  striking  contrast  to  the 
meagreness  and  vagueness  of  the  Synoptics.  The  historicity  of 
the  author’s  routing  of  Jesus  through  Palestine  is  not  the  phil- 
ologian’s  problem;  the  latter  simply  inquires  whether  the  author 
knew  his  Palestine. 

Apart  from  the  evangelical  commonplaces  of  Judasa,  Samaria-, 
Galilee,  Across- Jordan,  the  Jordan  and  Lake  of  Galilee,  Jerusalem, 
Bethany,  Bethlehem,  Nazareth,  Capernaum,  etc.,  we  find  the 
following  original  data:  Bethabara  beyond  Jordan  (1,  28), 1  ^Enon 
near  Salem,  the  city  Ephraim  (places  unidentified,  but  correct 
Semitic  place-names),2  “a  city  of  Samaria  called  Sychar”,  hard 
by  Jacob’s  Well,  with  the  accompanying  reference  to  the  holy 
mountain  of  the  Samaritans.  Jacob’s  Well  is  not  a  datum  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  belongs  rather  to  the  Samaritan  than  to  the 
Jewish  tradition.  Sychar,  both  as  name  and  place,  is  variously 
explained;  it  may  be  a  perversion  of  Shechem  (by  textual  error 
or  as  a  punning  epithet),  or  it  may  be  the  site  of  the  elder  Shechem, 
which  later  moved  farther  west  between  Ebal  and  Gerizim.3 

In  geographical  terminology  the  Gospel  follows  Semitic 
usage  in  calling  the  uplands  “the  mountain”  (Heb.  ha-har ),  6,  3, 
and  the  Lake  of  Galilee  a  “sea”,  Odkaacra  (Heb.  yam).  In  6,  1 


1 WH  prefers  the  reading  “Bethany",  and  rejects  “Bethabara";  so 
Thayer  and  Preuschen,  arguing  that  the  change  was  made  arbitrarily  by 
Origen,  who  found  a  Bethabara  and  not  a  Bethany.  But  the  Curetonian- 
Sinaitic  Syriac  has,  versus  the  Peshitto,  Beth-‘ebre  (which  without  the  points 
could  be  read  exactly  as  the  Greek),  and  are  we  to  suppose  Origenian  influence 
in  that  early  text?  Bethabara,  “the  place  of  the  ford",  is  doubtless  to  be 
identified  with  the  Beth-bara  of  Jud.  7,  24  (the  word  being  shortened  from 
original  Beth-‘abara).  The  identity  is  not  noticed  so  far  as  I  see  by  Old 
Testament  commentators. 

2  Every  student  of  the  geographical  criticism  of  Jewish  writings,  from 
the  Old  Testament  down  to  Josephus,  is  aware  of  the  lack  of  identifications 
especially  in  Samaria.  The  difference  between  the  archaeologist  and  the 
literary  critic  appears  to  be  this:  that  the  former  hopes  ultimately  to  make 
the  identifications,  the  latter  is  not  anxious  to  do  so. 

3  See  G.  A.  Smith’s  chapter  on  the  subject  in  his  Historical  Geography, 
and  my  Samaritans  (Philadelphia,  1907),  pp.  20,  157.  Acts  8,  5  is  far  less 
explicit  as  to  which  “city  of  Samaria"  is  meant.  Another  instance  of  Samar¬ 
itan  tradition  is  found  in  Stephen’s  speech,  Acts  7,  15  f. 

5 


this  lake  is  called  rj  Oakacrcra  rrjs  TaXtXaia^  Trjs  Ti/3e/HaSo9, 
in  20,  1  simply  Sea  of  Tiberias.  If  the  former  phrase  is  textually 
authentic,  the  construction  of  the  two  genitives  is  Aramaic,  not 
Greek;  the  use  of  both  names  exhibits  the  author’s  knowledge 
of  the  change  of  names  in  the  first  century.  As  Tiberias  was 
certainly  founded  in  the  third  decade  of  that  century,  there  is 
no  reason  for  skepticism  in  regard  to  the  author’s  use  of  the  later 
name. 

There  is  particular  knowledge  of  Jerusalem  and  its  vicinity, 
e.  g.,  the  Torrent-bed  of  the  Reckon,  ^ei/xappos  tcov  KeSpcov, 
18,  l,4  the  Pool  of  Siloam,  with  note  of  its  Hebrew  et}unology; 
the  Sheep  Gate  doubtless  to  be  connected  with  Nehemiah’s  Sheep 
Gate  on  the  north  of  the  temple,  along  with  the  accompanying 
Pool  of  Bethesda,  “House  of  Mercy’’,5 6  a  pool  which  has  now 
been  located  in  the  property  of  St.  Ann’s  Church,  with  remains 
of  what  the  White  Fathers  believe  to  be  the  five  stoas  mentioned 
in  the  account.  The  topography  of  the  temple  is  known,  e.  g.,  the 
Treasury  (so  Mk.  12,  41,  in  another  connection),  and  the  Stoa  of 
Solomon  (also  Acts  5,  12). 

4  So  occasionally  the  Septuagint,  and  one  of  the  few  instances  of  cor¬ 
respondence  with  the  Greek  translation.  The  ingenuity  of  the  promoters 

of  a  recent  Passion  Play  at,  I  think,  Turin,  in  improvising  a  rushing  brook 
and  a  bridge  for  the  holy  party  to  cross  to  Gethsemane,  was  laudable  but 
geographically  and  financially  extravagant. 

6  Other  variants  to  the  name  are  Bethzatha  (so  WH),  Bethsaida. 


6 


2.  HISTORICAL  DATA 


The  Gospel  presents  few  additional  historical  data  of  a  political 
order.  We  have  to  note  the  reference  to  Caiaphas  “being  high 
priest  that  year”,  11,  49,  and  the  datum  in  2,  20  that  the  temple 
had  been  forty-six  years  in  building.  According  to  Schurer  this 
would  make  the  date  of  the  scene  A.  D.  27  or  preferably  28,  which 
would  be  actually  the  first  year  of  the  Lord’s  ministry,  according 
to  one  of  the  accepted  chronologies  of  his  life.1  As  to  the  order  of 
events  in  Jesus’  ministry,  that  again  lies  beyond  the  philologian’s 
task.  I  therefore  omit  the  problems  of  the  year  of  the  cleansing 
of  the  temple  and  the  day  of  the  crucifixion.  It  may  be  observed 
that  the  author  moves  with  sovereign  assurance  in  the  historical 
argument  of  the  book,  and  prejudice  for  or  against  his  outline 
must  be  subject  to  philological  criticism. 

But  it  is  noteworthy  that  a  book  so  mystical  in  its  religion, 
so  transcendental  in  its  theology — such  is  the  current  censure  of 
many  critics — is  so  full  of  personal  anecdote  and  allusion.  The 
nearest  and  the  instructive  parallel  is  the  picture  of  Socrates  and 
his  friends  in  the  Platonic  dialogues.2  To  review  the  list  of  details 
we  may  begin  with  the  relations  of  Jesus  to  John  Baptist,  whose 
figure  still  haunts  the  book  long  after  his  person  has  disappeared 
(c.  1;  3,  23;  5,  32;  8,  40),  a  stress  as  to  the  Baptist’s  commanding 


1  See  Schurer,  Geschichte  d.  jiid.  Volkes ,  ed.  4,  vol.  1,  p.  369.  The  com¬ 
monplace  “forty-six”  does  not  lend  itself  agreeably  to  the  interpretation  of 
the  mystagogues,  like  Christopher  Wordsworth,  who  found  some  holy  numer¬ 
ical  squares  in  the  “153  fishes”,  or  Pfleiderer,  who  identified  the  seven  hus¬ 
bands  of  the  woman  of  Samaria  with  the  seven  nations  imported  into  Samaria, 

2  Ki.  17.  Had  Dr.  Pfleiderer  lived  in  America  he  would  not  have  been  so 
much  surprised  at  the  lady’s  matrimonial  vicissitudes.  Or  are  we  to  suppose 
that  the  otherwise  “ill-informed”  author  of  the  Gospel  did  some  nachschlagen 
in  one  of  the  copies  of  Josephus’s  Antiquities  presented  by  Titus  to  the  pro¬ 
vincial  capitals? 

2  Years  ago  I  read  Eduard  Meyer’s  brilliant  picture  of  the  Golden  Age  of 
Athens  in  his  Geschichte  des  Alterthums,  vol.  iv,  and  have  borne  in  mind  his 
appreciation  of  Plato  as  a  prime  authority  for  Socrates,  superior  to  Xenophon, 
despite  the  former’s  idealization.  He  says,  p.  439:  “It  is  universally  recog¬ 
nized  that  Plato  gives  the  immeasurably  deeper  conception  of  Socrates  and 
gained  a  view  of  him,  in  his  very  being,  to  an  extent  of  which  the  matter-of- 
fact  ( niichtern )  Xenophon  had  no  inkling  ...  It  would  be  a  gross  perversion 
if  we  undertook  to  draw  a  picture  of  Socrates  exclusively  on  Xenophon’s 
authority.”  The  parallel  with  the  comparison  between  the  Synoptics  and 
St.  John  is  obvious. 


7 


importance  which  is  corroborated  from  other  quarters.8  There 
are  the  anecdotes  of  the  call  of  the  Apostles,  including  Nathanael, 
c.  1,  the  latter  being  casually  named  as  “of  Cana  of  Galilee”  in 
21,  2;  of  the  conversation  with  Nicodemus,  c.  3,  who  appears 
again  as  his  advocate  against  the  Pharisees,  7,  50,  and  as  one  who 
helped  bury  him,  19,  39;  constantly  of  Simon  Peter,  always  so 
called  with  his  Hebrew  name  first  (even  as  he  is  known  as  Symeon 
in  the  early  document  behind  Acts  15),  and  with  his  patronymic 
“bar  John,”  1,  42;  21,  15.  Also  Peter  functions  as  the  leading 
Apostle,  even  as  in  the  Synoptics,  e.  g.,  6,  68  ff.  We  find  the  collo¬ 
quies  with  Andrew,  6,  8;  with  Peter,  Thomas,  and  Philip  “of 
Bethsaida”,  at  the  Last  Supper,  cc.  13-14;  with  the  disciples 
called  by  name  in  the  post-Resurrection  scene  in  c.  21.  Judas 
Iscariot  is  known  as  the  son  of  Simon,  and  Thomas  is  almost 
always  surnamed  Didymus.  The  intimate  relations  with  Mary  and 
Martha,  the  sisters  of  Lazarus,  with  Mary  Magdalen  after  the 
Resurrection,  require  only  allusion.  There  is  one  mysterious 
figure,  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved,  who  leaned  upon  his  breast 
at  the  Last  Supper.  Is  he  a  dramatic  figment,  and  if  not,  why  the 
cryptic  allusion?  It  must  be  noticed  that  the  Apostle  John — 
one  of  the  Pillars  of  the  Church  according  to  St.  Paul — is  never 
named;  we  only  hear  once  of  the  sons  of  Zebedee,  21,  2.  Finally 
the  dialogue  with  Pilate  cannot  be  ignored.3 4 

Of  Jesus’  family  history  nothing  is  directly  said,  yet  despite 
his  transcendental  notion  of  the  Lord  the  author  recalls  “his 
brothers”,  who  did  not  believe  in  him,  8,  3  ff ,  and  quotes  his 
incredulous  fellow-citizens:  “Is  not  this  Jesus  bar  Joseph,  whose 
father  and  mother  we  know?”,  6,  42,  cf.  1,  45. 


3  The  Hellenic  critics  of  the  Gospel  lay  stress  upon  the  presence  of  a 
"Baptist”  community  at  Ephesus.  They  forget  that  a  sect  of  the  same 
“denomination”  still  survives  in  Mesopotamia,  which  probably  carries  back 
its  genealogy  well  into  the  evangelical  period.  I  was  interested,  subsequently 
to  writing  these  words,  to  see  that  my  opinion  is  corroborated  by  Lidzbarski. 
In  his  recent  edition  of  the  Mandaic  liturgies  with  text  and  translation 
( Mandaische  Liturgien,  Berlin,  1920)  he  argues,  pp.  xix  seq.,  for  the  close 
connection  of  the  sect  with  Trans- Jordania.  I  might  add  to  his  argument 
from  certain  terms,  the  mystical  Jordan,  Hauran,  Neb&t  (i.  e.  Nabataeans), 
which  had  led  me  to  think  in  the  same  line,  some  marked  similarities  of  script. 

4  None  conversant  with  the  history  of  the  Near  East  can  doubt  offhand 
the  triplicate  title  Pilate  wrote  for  the  cross,  “  in  Hebrew  and  Latin  and  Greek  ”. 
The  postage  stamps  of  Palestine,  the  types  of  the  Egyptian  Expeditionary 
Force,  are  surcharged,  from  above  downwards,  with  “Palestine”  in  Arabic 
and  English  and  Hebrew. 


8 


3.  DATA  BEARING  ON  JEWISH  INSTITUTIONS 

This  title  is  logically  a  sub-division  of  the  preceding  one,  but 
it  is  of  sufficient  importance  to  stand  by  itself.  One  of  the  most 
fertile  fields,  probably  the  most  fertile  field,  of  investigation  for 
the  New  Testament  is  found  in  the  Judaistic  literature  subsequent 
to  the  Old  Testament  and  in  the  inexhaustible  mines  of  Rabbin- 
ism.  Fortunately  there  is  a  fixed  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  first 
century,  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  A.  D.  70,  which  enables 
us  to  distinguish  between  earlier  and  later  sources.  Does  the 
Gospel  correspond  to  the  conditions  of  Jewry  as  they  are  known 
to  have  been  in  the  first  two  generations  of  that  century? 

One  ancient  doubt  thrown  on  the  Palestinian  origin  of  the 
book  is  the  author’s  constant  use  of  the  term  “the  Jews,”  alleged 
to  be  almost  an  offensive  epithet  for  Jesus’  enemies.  It  has 
hardly  been  observed  that  Nehemiah,  the  Jewish  governor  of 
Jerusalem,  uses  the  same  name  for  his  own  people,  as  does  Josephus 
throughout.  Up  to  A.  D.  70  Jew  was  still  a  political  name, 
meaning  particularly  the  inhabitants  of  Judasa,  to  whom  were 
contrasted  not  only  the  Greek-speaking  Jews  (called  “Greeks”, 
12,  20),  and  the  Samaritans,  but  also  the  Jewish  Galikeans.1 
At  the  same  time  the  writer  correctly  knows  the  esoteric,  inti¬ 
mate  name  of  the  community  within  itself,  that  of  “Israel”,  and 
so  uses  it  uniquely  among  the  Gospels :  1,31,“  that  he  might  be 
revealed  to  Israel”;  1,  48,  “Thou  art  an  Israelite  indeed  in  whom 
is  no  guile”  (the  word  “Israel”  is  used  in  the  Talmud  of  the 
individual  Jew).  Compare  Gal.  6,  16. 

In  regard  to  the  parties  in  Judaism  we  have  the  correct 
distinction  as  among  priests  and  rulers  and  Pharisees,  which 
classes  are  represented  as  acting  separately  or  in  concert;  e.  g., 
“many  of  the  rulers  believed,  but  feared  the  Pharisees”,  12,  42. 
The  Sadducees  are  not  named. 


1  “Jews”  is  similarly  used  in  the  Elephantine  papyrus  no.  1,  in  distinction 
from  the  rulers,  just  as  in  Rabbinic  literature  “Israel”  is  distinguished  from 
the  priests.  One  of  the  names  for  Judah  in  the  Gospel  was  probably  “  House 
of  the  Jews”,  11,  54,  see  below  No.  4  d.  To  this  day  Jews  still  prefer  the 
name  “Jews”,  despite  the  “journalese”  affectation  of  “Hebrews”  or 
“Israelites”. 


9 


The  calendar  feasts  of  the  Jews  are  repeatedly  named  with 
exact  particulars.  Three  distinct  celebrations  of  the  Passover 
are  recorded  (cc.  3,  6,  11  ff.).  The  feast  of  Booths  is  uniquely 
named  in  the  Gospel,  c.  7,  and  the  writer  knows  of  “the  last  day, 
the  great  day  of  the  feast,”  to  which  datum  the  Talmud  gives  full 
corroboration.  It  was  the  day  of  the  Water  Drawing  (not  in  the 
Biblical  ritual),  and  as  those  who  allow  any  historicity  to  the  scene 
are  aware,  that  rite  may  have  given  Jesus  the  text  for  his  saying: 
“If  anyone  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  me  and  drink,”  v.  37.  The 
writer  knows  of  the  feast  of  the  Dedication,  and  that  it  took  place 
in  the  winter,  10,  22  ff.  This  feast  is  not  in  the  Bible  calendar, 
there  is  but  a  single  reference  to  it  in  a  Psalm  title,  and  it  was  not 
frequented  by  pilgrims,  occurring  as  it  did  in  winter.  The  terms 
concerning  the  final  Passover,  “the  Preparation  of  the  Passover,” 
19,  14,  and  “great  was  the  day  of  that  Sabbath”,  have  correct 
flavor.  Note  may  be  made  of  the  several  references  to  the  puri¬ 
fication  customs  of  the  Jews:  2,  6;  3,  25;  11,  55;  cf.  also  18,  28. 

Intimate  knowledge  of  the  highpriestly  family  is  displayed; 
the  anonymous  disciple  is  said  to  have  been  acquainted  with  the 
high  priest.  The  frequent  changes  in  the  highpriestly  succession, 
Annas,  Caiaphas,  etc.,  are  vouched  for  by  Rabbinic  tradition. 
The  claim  of  prophecy  for  the  high  priest  in  11,  49 — “being  high 
priest  that  year  he  prophesied  that  Jesus  must  die” — has  its 
parallel  in  the  claim  for  Caiaphas’s  great  predecessor  John  Hyr- 
canus  that  he  was  a  prophet,  a  notion  doubtless  connected  with 
the  tradition  of  the  Urim  and  Thummim  with  which  the  high 
priest  was  invested. 

In  regard  to  the  Jewish  politics  of  the  time,  I  have  been  for 
long  convinced  in  my  study  of  Pharisaism  that  the  crowning 
argument  of  the  Pharisees  against  Pilate’s  indecision  that  then 
“thou  art  not  a  friend  of  Cassar;  everyone  who  makes  himself  a 
king  speaks  against  Caesar”,  and  “we  have  no  king  but  Caesar” 
(19,  12.  15),  expresses  in  a  nutshell  the  Pharisaic  politics,  which 
was  anti-Messianic  and  satisfied  with  the  political  status  in  quo. 
Indeed,  from  any  worldly  standpoint,  Caiaphas’s  shrewd  advice, 
11,  47  ff,  was  above  reproach. 

It  may  be  noted  that  the  Jewish  law  of  witness,  which  had  its 
development  in  the  first  century  B.  C.,  is  twice  referred  to — in 
Nicodemus’s  mouth,  7,  50  ff,  and  in  Jesus’  own  words,  5,  31  ff. 

10 


Also  of  interest  are  the  several  references  to  excommunication: 
9,  22.  34;  12,  42;  16,  2. 

I  have  pointed  out  in  my  Samaritans ,  p.  155,  that  the  Jewish 
jibe  at  Jesus,  “Thou  art  a  Samaritan  and  hast  a  devil”,  i.  e.,  “art 
a  fool”,  is  illustrated  from  Ecclesiasticus  50,  26,  “the  foolish 
people  that  dwells  at  Shechem,”  and  from  the  Talmud,  in  which 
“Samaritan”  and  “fool”  are  synonymous. 


ll 


4.  THE  ARAMAIC  BACKGROUND  OF  THE  GOSPEL 


I  pass  on  now  to  what  is  for  me  the  most  interesting  field 
of  this  study.  It  is  also  absolutely  original — a  feature  which 
increases  its  interest  to  the  writer  but  not  its  authority  for  others 
— as  I  have  read  no  treatments  of  this  subject,  and,  except  for 
Burney’s  book,  I  do  not  know  if  any  such  treatments  exist. 

To  avoid  the  appearance  of  prejudice  in  a  field  which  contains 
much  room  for  subjective  impressions,  I  begin  with  sketching  the 
process  of  my  mind  on  this  theme.  Like  any  student  of  the  New 
Testament  I  have  acquired  fairly  definite  ideas  of  the  literary 
character  of  its  books,  individually  and  in  groups.  A  Semitic 
student’s  sense  is  the  more  sharpened  by  his  special  studies, 
especially  in  the  fields  of  Aramaic  literature  and  in  the  Hellenistic- 
Judaic  writings. 

The  New  Testament  fell  for  me  into  definite  categories. 
There  is  the  barbarous  Semitic  Greek  of  the  Apocalypse.  On  a 
far  higher  level,  speaking  graece ,  stand  the  Synoptics,  the  first  of 
which  is  traditionally  reputed  to  be  a  translation  of  a  Semitic 
original,  the  common  basis  of  all  of  which  is  recognized  by  critics 
to  have  been  a  Palestinian  product.  How  far  the  Semitic  element 
in  these  Gospels  is  a  literary  quantum  I  would  like  to  weigh  again. 
The  Biblical  references  and  citations  in  St.  Matthew,  the  Infancy 
chapters  in  St.  Luke,  the  undoubtedly  true  reports  of  much  of 
Jesus’  alleged  teachings,  all  tend  to  give  a  Semitic  coloring  to  the 
whole  body  of  the  Synoptics;  whether  or  not  this  coloring  is  as 
patent  in  the  framework  of  the  several  books  I  am  not  prepared 
to  say. 

Much  of  Acts  stands  very  much  in  the  same  grouping.  While 
there  is  excellent  reason  to  believe  with  Professor  Torrey  that  the 
first  half  of  Acts  depends  upon  an  Aramaic  original,1  the  Hellen¬ 
istic  composer  of  the  whole  book  has  fairly  well  disguised  the 
origin  of  his  traditions.  The  Epistles  in  general  are  composed  in 
plain  Hellenistic  Greek,  with  no  particular  Aramaic  or  Semitic 
coloring,  written  as  they  were  in  the  actual  language  of  the  Hellen¬ 
istic  world.  This  is  true  not  only  of  Paul,  the  Jew  from  Asia 

1  C.  C.  Torrey,  The  Composition  and  Date  of  Acts,  Harvard  Univ.  Press, 
1916. 


12 


Minor,  but  also  of  the  Epistle  of  James,  to  my  mind  a  Palestinian 
product,  yet  betraying  to  my  knowledge  only  one  Aramaism.* 2 
At  the  extreme  of  the  attempt  at  elegant  writing  stand  Hebrews, 
a  fine  example  of  Alexandrian  style,  and  the  editorial  work  of  the 
Lucan  author,  which  suggests  classical  models. 

Among  these  groups  the  Johannine  writings  appeared  to  me 
to  present  a  very  simple  and  yet  correct  Greek.  I  would  have 
thought,  somewhat  superficially,  that  a  beginner  might  do  better 
for  initiation  into  the  Greek  New  Testament  through  the  Fourth 
Gospel  than  through  many  of  the  other  documents  with  their 
apparently  provincial  stylisms.  Moffatt  remarks  on  the  repeti¬ 
tious  rather  tiresome  style  of  these  writings;  indeed  their  style 
is  just  artless,  often  almost  childlike,  yet  not  barbarous.3 

And  so  I  confess  that  only  recently  there  flashed  upon  my 
mind  the  notion  that  the  style  and  other  philological  features  of 
the  Gospel  suggest  a  Semitic,  and  specifically  an  Aramaic  origin. 
I  had  long  cherished  a  prepossession  for  the  historical  validity  of 
the  tangible  data  of  the  book,  but  this  judgment  I  knew  to  be 
open  to  the  influence  of  prejudice;  I  was  unexpectant  of  any 
philological  corroboration,  and  felt,  probably  too  cautiously, 
that  this  lack  militated  against  the  historical  claims  of  the  Gospel. 
Yet  I  knew  that  a  Palestinian  or  Jerusalemite  Jew  could  write 
good  Greek,  just  as  an  Isaac  Zangwill  or  a  Judge  Sulzberger  can 
compose  brilliant  English.  Barbarous  Greek  was  not  necessary 
for  an  authentic  evangelical  historian.  However,  the  notion 
which  came  to  me  was  a  sudden,  automatic  impression,  originating 
from  the  well-known  data  in  my  mind,  and  was  not  the  result  of 
purposed  logic  with  all  its  pitfalls. 

What  follows  is  an  attempt  at  induction  towards  proving  out 
that  theory. 

(a)  Greek  Interpretations  op  Semitic  Words 

The  Gospel  is  unique  in  its  presentation  of  Semitic  words, 
with  almost  invariably  their  Greek  translations.  I  note  the 
following  cases. 

3  1,  1:  “the  faith  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  of  glory”;  cf.  the  comment 

under  §  1  on  “the  sea  of  Galilee,  of  Tiberias”.  Josephus  the  Jerusalemite 
wrote,  with  expert  advice,  in  the  bombastic  literary  style  of  current  Hellenism 
with  hardly  a  betrayal  of  his  origin;  but  one  Aramaism  has  been  detected. 

3  Is  not  this  simplicity  of  style  essentially  Semitic,  and  in  particular 
Aramaic?  Our  Gospel  is  most  similar  stylistically  to  the  Aramaic  stories 
in  Daniel. 


13 


For  geographical  names  we  find:  Siloam  =  “sent”;  Gab- 
batha  =  “pavement”;  and  in  company  with  the  Synoptic 
tradition,  Golgotha  =  “the  skull”. 

For  titles:  Rabbi  and  Rabboni  (the  latter  Aramaic)  = 
“teacher”,  the  former  appearing  seven  times  in  the  Gospel,  the 
latter  unique  in  the  Testament;  Christos  =  “Messiah”,  twice, 
and  solus  in  the  Testament.  Also  note  the  constant  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  Thomas  by  Didymus,  also  solus. 

To  five  or  six  of  these  interpretations  the  Gospel  adds 
“Hebrew-wise”  (e/3patcrrt),  a  word  which  appears  elsewhere 
only  twice,  in  Revelation.  (The  terms  “Hebrew”  and  “Aramaic” 
[“Syrian”]  were  used  indifferently.) 

The  unique  doubling,  “Amen,  Amen”  (“verily,  verily”) 
occurs  25  times,  while  the  other  Gospels  use,  much  more  sparingly, 
the  single  “Amen”.  There  may  be  an  Aramaic  background  to 
this  reiteration;  cf.  bish,  bish,  “very  bad”;  had ,  had ,  “each 
single  one”;  meddem ,  tneddem,  “anything  at  all”. 

That  characteristic  term  of  this  Gospel,  the  Paraclete,  was 
early  domesticated  in  the  Jewish  dialects;  it  is  found  in  the  oldest 
tractate  of  the  Mishnah,  in  Pirke  Aboth,  ed.  Taylor,  4,  11,  where 
the  word  in  the  sense  of  ‘  ‘  advocate  ”  is  put  in*  the  mouth  of  a  teacher 
of  the  latter  part  of  the  first  century.  The  word  may  have  been 
actually  used  by  Jesus  himself  in  his  Aramaic  discourse.4 

The  only  Latin  terms  used  are  Prsetorium  and  (fypayeWiov 
—  “flagellum”,  the  former  in  concord  with  the  Synoptic  tradition, 
the  latter  independently,  but  the  corresponding  verb  appears  in 
the  Synoptic  narrative  of  the  Trial.  Both  of  these  words  were 
domesticated  in  the  Aramaic,  being  found  in  the  Syriac  dialect. 

(b)  Aramaic  Idioms  in  Words  and  Phrases 

There  is  an  idiom  which  is  distinctly  Aramaic  and  which  I 
have  been  interested  in  following  up  in  Biblical  Aramaic,  in 
Hebrew  (under  Aramaic  influence),  and  in  Syriac.  It  is  an  idiom 
which  has  often  been  ignored  by  Old  Testament  commentators, 
and  the  recognition  of  it  clears  up  one  Hebrew  passage  on  the 
misunderstanding  of  which  an  English  scholar  has  built  up  an 
ingenious  theory.  This  is  the  use  of  a  term  indicating  place  after 
a  geographical  name  to  indicate  that  it  is  a  place,  country,  city, 

4  For  the  early  introduction  of  Greek  legal  terms  into  the  Palestinian 
vernacular,  see  Schurer,  op.  cit.  2,  pp.  59  f. 

14 


village,  etc.  It  is  a  usage  which  is  called  in  Assyriology  a  deter¬ 
minative,  the  determinative  (the  sign  ki)  being  written  after  the 
name  and  probably  pronounced  with  the  appropriate  word;  the 
Aramaic  dialects  fell  heir  to  the  usage.  For  instance,  we  have  in 
Esther  1,  2  and  Daniel  8,  2,  “Shushan  the  fortress”,  i.  e.,  anglice 
4  ‘  the  fortress  (garrison  city)  Shushan  ’  ’ ;  similarly  the  Elephantine 
papyri  use  “Yeb  the  fortress”;  the  Syriac  speaks  of  “Pontus  the 
place,”  Acts  18,  2;  etc.5  Some  examples  of  this  idiom  are  found 
in  our  Gospel ;  and  it  appears  as  if  the  writer  were  at  least  thinking 
in  Aramaic. 

In  11,  54,  Jesus  goes  44 to  Ephraim  so-called  city”,  ets  'Ecfrpalp 
Xeyopevrjv  7t6Xlv,  RV  “into  a  city  called  Ephraim”;  i.  e.,  the 
writer  thought  “Ephraim  medinta” ,  the  city  Ephraim.  In  7,  42 
we  read  in  RV  of  “Bethlehem,  the  village  where  David  was”; 
but  why  not  then,  “B.  the  village  of  David”?  But  translate: 
“the  village  Bethlehem  where  D.  was”.  And  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  6  Xeyopevo^  Kpaviov  707705,  19,  17  (cf.  the  Synoptics) 
contains  the  same  idiom:  “the  place  Skull.” 

In  11,  1  occurs  the  remarkably  clumsy  sentence:  “There 
was  a  certain  man  who  was  sick,  Lazarus  from  ( euro )  Bethany  of 
(e/c)  the  village  of  Mary  and  Martha  her  sister.”  What  we  would 
expect  is:  “Lazarus  from  Bethany-the-village,  the  brother  of 
Mary  and  Martha.”  And  such  actually  is  the  rendering  in  the 
Syriac  translations,  the  Curetonian  and  the  Peshitto.  (It  would 
be  agreeable  to  think  that  the  Syriac  had  a  better  Greek  copy 
than  what  has  survived  in  our  Greek  texts.)  At  all  events  the 
idiom  we  are  observing  clears  up  the  initial  difficulty  of  “from 
Bethany  of  the  village” —  understand  “from  Bethany  the  village” 
— and  it  looks  as  if  the  erroneous  attempt  through  some  hand  to 


6  Paton,  on  Esther  1,  2,  ignores  this  usage  in  “ Shushan  the  fortress”; 
he  holds  that  “fortress”  is  epexegetical  to  “Sh.  ”,  i.  e.,  the  citadel  as  distin¬ 
guished  from  the  city.  But  he  finds  himself  in  trouble  at  2,  5!  Similarly 
Batten,  on  Ezra  8,  17,  stumbles  at  “Casiphia  the  place”  (English  versions, 
“the  place  Casiphia”),  and  would  unnecessarily  delete  “place”  as  a  Baby- 
lonism.  On  the  same  phrase  L.  E.  Browne,  M.A.,  has  contributed  an  article 
to  the  Journal  of  Theological  Studies ,  July,  1916,  entitled  “A  Jewish  Sanctuary 
in  Babylon”,  summed  up  again  in  his  very  suggestive  book,  Early  Judaism 
(Cambridge,  1920),  pp.  53 f.  He  constructs  a  theory  on  makam ,  “place”  — 
“sanctuary”,  following  a  good  Semitic  denotation,  and  argues  that  the  Jews 
had  a  temple  at  Casiphia.  But  this  theory  must  fall  before  the  recognition 
of  the  current  Aramaic  use  of  the  word. 


15 


give  construction  to  the  detached  “of  the  village”  by  construing 
it  with  the  sisters’  names  helped  to  dislodge  the  original  order.6 

A  somewhat  kindred  usage  appears  in  3,  1,  NikoS^/ao? 
ovofjL a  avTco ,  “Nicodemus  by  name,”  which  has  its  parallel 
in  Ezra  5,  14,  ‘ £ Sheshbazzar  his  name”.  Therefore  there  is  no 
philological  reason  with  commentators  to  delete  “his  name”. 
The  same  use  is  frequent  in  the  Elephantine  Aramaic  papyri,  e.  g., 
repeatedly  in  Sachau,  Pap.  5.  The  Curetonian  Syriac  has,  “a 
Pharisee,  his  name  was  Nicodemus”;  the  Peshitto,  “a  Ph.,  N. 
his  name  was”;  the  Palestinian-Syriac,  “a  Ph.  his  name  N.”. 

The  following  Semitic  constructions  appear:  the  use  of  the 
infinitive  absolute  is  represented  in  “he  rejoices  with  joy”,  3,  29, 
RV  “rejoices  greatly”;  in  the  characteristic  “son  of  perdition”, 
17,  11  (  =  “son  of  Belial”? — which  however  is  not  so  translated 
in  the  Septuagint);  in  the  use  of  a  plural  verb  with  a  singular 
subject,  “this  multitude  which  knows  not  the  law  are  accursed”, 
7,  49.  Also  note  the  plurals  a ifiara  “blood”,  and  uSara  “water”, 
the  former  found  elsewhere  only  in  Rev.,  the  latter  but  once  in 
Matt.,  and  in  Rev.  several  times.  The  phrase  “living  water”, 
primarily  “fresh  water”,  4,  11;  7,  38,  is  Semitic,  and  occurs 
again  only  in  Rev.  7,  17,  where  RV  wrongly  has  “waters  of  life”. 

I  note  also  the  expression  TTpcoros  pov,  “before  me”,  1,  15; 
the  play  on  to  7rvevfiaf  “wind:  spirit”,  3,  8;  and  the  two  cases 
where  the  subject  is  thrown,  apparently  without  warrant,  to  the 
end  of  the  sentence;  3,  24,  “John”;  13,  2,  “Judas”,  for  which  I 
find  parallels  in  Biblical  Aramaic  and  Syriac.  Also  the  following 
Semitic-looking  cases:  the  plural  in  ets  tol  ottictco,  6,  66;  “he 
spake-of  (eXeyev)  the  Father  to  them”,cf.  the  similar  use  of  }amar 
=  \4yeiv  in  Jud.  7,  4;  the  impersonal  use  of  the  plural  verb  in 
12,  16:  “When  Jesus  was  glorified  then  the  disciples  remembered 
that  such  things  were  written  about  him  and  these  things  they 
did  to  him”,  i.  e.,  “were  done  to  him” — peculiarly  Aramaic; 
imperatives  construed  asyndeton,  5,  8,  “Rise,  take  up”.  The 
passage  in  15,  16  does  not  mean  “I  appointed  you  that  ye  should 
go  (off)  and  bear  fruit”,  but  “that  ye  should  go  on  bearing  fruit”, 
the  Greek  word  for  “go”  representing  the  Hebrew  and  Aramaic 


6  If  we  might  surmise  an  WramaicToriginal  here,  "we  could  suppose,  be¬ 
ginning  with  “of  Mary”:  “who  was  to  {dil)  Mary  the  brother  and  to  Martha 
her  sister;"  dil  being  understood  as  genitival  instead  of  relative,  caused  the 
omission  of  “brother".  But  it  is  dangerous  to  restore  the  obvious! 

16 


halak,  which  is  used  commonly  in  the  sense  “to  go  on  doing ”. 
The  Semitic  partitive  use  of  the  preposition  min,  “of”,  6K, 
appears  in  16,  17:  “(Some)  of  (e/c)  his  disciples  said  to  him”. 
Cf.  6,  39:  “it  is  the  will  of  him  who  sent  me  that  all  (nav,  neuter, 
‘everything’,  Semitic  kol )  which  he  has  given  me  I  should  not 
lose  of  it  (i£  avrov)  ”,  in  which  the  marked  phrases  are  emphati¬ 
cally  Semitic. 

As  a  matter  of  curiosity  I  may  note  one  case  of  absolute 
identity  with  a  phrase  in  the  Aramaic  Elephantine  papyri.  The 
conditional  clause  in  3,  2:  “None  can  do  these  signs  unless  God 
be  with  him ,”  is  identical  with  a  maxim  in  the  Ahikar  papyri 
(Sachau,  Pap.  54,  line  13,  page  163):  “Who  can  stand  before 
him  (i.  e.,  the  king)  but  he  whom  God  is  with?”7 

(c)  Idioms  of  Predicate  Construction 

Here  I  acknowledge  I  tread  on  delicate  ground.  Anyone 
who  knows  Septuagintal  philology  is  aware  how  difficult  it  is  to 
decide  what  is  Greek  and  what  directly  Semitic.  The  statistics 
and  parallelism  with  other  monuments  of  Hellenistic  literature 
should  be  worked  out  more  carefully  than  I  can  do  at  present, 
and  my  attempts  are  open  to  large  criticism.  I  may  only  pro¬ 
visionally  present  the  superficial  testimony  for  certain  Semitisms 
of  predicate  construction. 

There  is  one  Aramaic  idiom  which  is  unique  to  that  dialect 
among  the  Semitic  tongues;  this  is  its  use  of  the  participle  active 
with,  or  without,  the  verb  “to  be”,  in  a  way  similar  to  the  English 
periphrastic  use,  “I  am  doing,  I  was  doing,”  or  in  futuritive  sense, 
“I  am  going  to  do”.  The  participle  is  timeless,  its  tense  is  dis¬ 
covered  only  from  the  circumstances,  and  it  gives  the  most  pic¬ 
turesque  construction  found  in  the  Aramaic,  presenting  the  action 
as  vividly  going  on. 

In  the  first  place  is  to  be  observed  the  constant  use  of  the 
Greek  perfects  and  imperfects  throughout  the  book.  As  regards 
the  imperfect,  the  contrast  is  obvious  as  against  the  Synoptic  use 
of  the  aorist.  This  stylism  is  not  carried  on  throughout,8  yet  the 

7 1  had  so  translated  this  phrase  myself,  and  subsequently  found  that 
such  was  Noldeke’s  rendering. 

8  An  example  where  the  aorist  is  used  is  in  11,  35,  "Jesus  wept";  how 
much  more  pathetic  is  the  translation  of  the  SyriaC:  “The  tears  of  Jesus 
were  coming".  There  is  no  question  here  when  he  began  to  weep,  but  some¬ 
one  looked  at  him  and  saw  the  tears  coursing  down  his  face. 

17 


imperfect  is  constantly  cropping  up  in  contrast  to  the  aorists  in 
the  neighborhood.  Thus  while  we  find  the  Synoptic  formula, 
“answered  and  said”,  in  aorists,  e.  g.,  2,  18;  18,  19,  still  more 
often  we  find  cases  where  the  aorist  in  the  first  place  is  followed 
by  an  imperfect.  For  example,  with  cases  taken  at  random: 
“The  Jews  surrounded  (aorist)  him  and  were  saying  (imperfect) 
to  him”,  10,  24;  “With  a  purple  robe  they  clothed  him  and  they 
were  coming  and  saying,”  19,  2;  “He  went  and  was  asking,” 
4,  47;  the  imperfects  in  8,  21  ff. 

Now  it  is  peculiarly  the  idiom  of  Biblical  Aramaic  and  early 
Syriac  to  start  a  sequence  of  tenses  with  the  perfect  tense  and  then 
to  continue  with  the  participial  construction.9  The  idiom  is  par¬ 
allel  to  the  well  known  Hebrew  construction  of  the  waw-consecu- 
tive.  It  is  an  idiom  to  which  the  Aramaic  student  is  immediately 
sensitive,  and  in  this  respect  the  Gospel  is  markedly  distinct  from 
its  Synoptic  compeers. 

How  far  the  constant  lively  use  of  the  present  tense,  e.  g.,  at 
large  in  cc.  4,  19,  is  due  to  a  possibility  of  good  Greek  idiom,  or 
how  far  to  the  tradition  of  the  equally  lively  Aramaic  participle, 
I  cannot  decide.  Here  the  distinction  obtains  as  against  the 
Synoptics. 

The  futuritive  use  of  the  participle  is  found  in  17,  20:  “for 
them  believing  (present  participle)  on  me  through  their  word”, 
AV  correctly,  “for  them  who  shall  believe”,  RV  pedantically, 
“who  believe”.  Cf.  the  similar  use  of  rows  crw^o/xeVovs  in  Acts 
2,  47,  where  again  rightly  AV,  “those  who  should  be  saved”, 
again  RV  pedantically  (with  anti-Calvinistic  prepossession!), 
“those  who  were  being  saved”.  Yet  RV  recognizes  the  idiom 
in  Dan.  2,  13:  “And  the  wise  men  were  to  be  slain”. 

Another  frequent  idiom  is  that  of  the  nominal  predicate, 
e.  g.,  such  a  sentence  as  “I  am  the  Vine”.  In  the  many  cases  of 
this  self-assertion  of  Jesus  the  wording  always  is,  lyoi  elfxi — 
yj  afjLTrekos,  etc.  The  use  of  both  pronoun  and  the  predicate  verb 
is  hardly  Greek,  which  would  generally  find  one  or  the  other  term 
sufficient.  But  the  usage  represents  a  Semitism,  particularly 
an  Aramaism,  namely  in  this  case  ena  hu  gefitta ,  which  the  Greek 
spells  out  laboriously  by  three  words,  rendering  the  hu  “it” 


9  The  sense  of  this  idiom  later  perished,  and  when  possible  the  Massora 
has  corrected  it  in  Biblical  Aramaic.  Also  in  Syriac  it  is  found  only  in  early 
documents,  and  is  ignored  often  in  the  pointing  of  the  Peshitto. 

18 


(literally,  “I  am  it,  the  vine”,  cf.  the  similar  French  idiom),  by 
the  predicate  verb.10  This  consideration  also  explains  the  dom¬ 
inant  use  of  “I”  (iyco)  in  the  Gospel — which  I  had  been  wont  to 
ascribe  to  the  divine  consciousness  of  Jesus,  or  that  consciousness 
as  alleged  by  the  author.  But  this  explanation  is  not  necessary. 
John  Baptist  says  equally:  “Not  am  I  the  Christ”.  It  is  also 
to  be  noted  that  the  constant  use  of  the  personal  pronoun  through 
the  book  is  due  in  large  part  to  the  Aramaic  participial  construction 
which  generally  required  a  pronoun.  To  take  an  example  at 
hazard:  the  Baptist  says,  3,  28,  “Ye  witness  that  I  said  (eijrov 
iyco),  Not  am  I  the  Christ.”  WH  brackets  the  first  iyco  on  textual 
grounds,  but  I  would  judge  philologically  that  the  apparently, 
superfluous  pronoun  represents  the  original  Aramaic  thought. 

Another  copula  phrase  in  the  Aramaic  is  to  be  noted.  This 
is  the  indeclinable  ith,  which  denotes  abstract  existence,  anglice , 
“there  is”,  which  can  be  further  defined  in  tense  by  the  addition 
of  the  predicate  verb.  It  looks  as  if  this  use,  in  thought  at  least, 
lies  behind  the  extraordinarily  large  use  of  the  verb  “to  be”  in  the 
Gospel.  Note  the  repetition  of  the  verb  in  the  opening  verses 
of  the  book,  and  compare  then  the  Syriac  translations.  The 
use  of  this  particle  is  in  general  different  from  the  use  of  the 
pronoun  cited  above,  although  the  Greek  expresses  both  by  the 
same  verb  “to  be”.  But  the  distinction  is  to  be  kept  in  mind 
by  the  exegete.  For  example  in  8,  58  Jesus  says:  “Before  Abra¬ 
ham  was  I  am,”  iyco  el  fit.  This  represents  the  Aramaic  ena  ithai , 
or  ithai  heweth,  i.  e.,  the  same  particle  as  we  might  suppose  to 
lie  behind  the  predicate  verbs  in  1,  1.  But  above  in  the  same 
discourse,  v.  24,  Jesus  says:  “If  ye  do  not  believe  that  it  is  I,” 
on  iyco  el  fit,  where  the  Aramaic  would  have  ena  ena  (“I  am  I”). 
The  contexts  do  not  allow  question  as  to  the  different  meanings 
of  the  one  and  the  same  “I  am”  in  the  two  texts.  Yet  the  point 
has  bothered  the  exegetes  of  the  Greek.  WH  queries  whether 
in  v.  24  the  Greek  should  not  be  accented  iyco  et/xt,  i.  e.,  “I  aw,” 
evidently  with  v.  58  in  mind,  and  RV  follows  suit  in  making  the 
latter  an  alternative  marginal  reading.  A  little  more  knowledge 
of  Aramaic  constructions  and  less  scruple  about  Greek  jots  and 
tittles  would  have  allayed  the  doubts  of  these  scholars. 

I  have  noticed  certain  usages  involving  the  use  of  the  pro¬ 
noun,  and  I  may  remark  here  the  use,  characteristic  to  this  Gospel, 

10  The  case  is  identical  with  the  Eucharistic  formula,  “This  is  my  body.” 

19 


of  the  demonstrative  e/cew'o?,  “that  one”,  e.  g.,  19,  35:  “He  who 
saw  witnessed  and  true  is  his  witness,  and  that  one  knows  that  he 
speaks  truth,  that  ye  may  believe.”  Thayer’s  Lexicon  indicates 
that  much  ink  has  been  shed  in  the  dispute  whether  this  is  or  is 
not  a  good  Greek  use.  But  the  case  is  not  strange  to  the  Aramaist. 
The  Aramaic  in  this  instance  would  be  hu  yada\  which  means 
“he — or  that  one — is  knowing,”  the  one  pronoun  being  both  per¬ 
sonal  and  demonstrative.11 

(i d )  Possible  Evidence  for  an  Aramaic  Original 

Professor  Burney,  of  Oxford,  published  last  year  a  book  on 
The  Aramaic  Origin  of  the  Fourth  Gospel ,  with,  as  I  understand, 
the  thesis  that  the  Gospel  is  a  translation  of  an  Aramaic  document. 
I  repeat  my  sense  of  caution  in  accepting  any  but  a  fairly  rigid 
demonstration  of  such  a  thesis.  It  is  indifferent  to  my  argument 
whether  the  book  was  written  in  Palestinian  Aramaic  or  by  an 
Aramaic-speaking  Palestinian  writing  in  Greek.  But  the  fact 
that  so  eminent  a  scholar  has  received  an  impression  of  the 
Gospel  claiming  far  more  for  it  than  I  venture,  is  a  welcome 
corroboration  of  my  own  thesis.12 

I  will,  however,  present  a  few  cases  which  have  fallen  my  way 
where  reversion  into  Aramaic  appears  to  clear  up  the  difficulty. 
I  remind  my  readers  that  despite  the  simplicity  of  the  Gospel 
there  remain  in  it  many  dark  places,  and  it  will  add  to  our  appre¬ 
ciation  of  the  book  if  we  can  remove  some  of  the  present  absurd¬ 
ities,  even  banalities,  of  the  text.  Withal  I  ask  my  readers  not 
to  regard  this  section  as  essential  to  my  argument;  indeed  I 
would  prefer  that  they  ignore  it  rather  than  receive  a  false  idea  of 
my  general  purpose. 


11  In  translation  in  Syriac  the  pronoun  hu  was  so  far  weakened  as  to 
represent  the  Greek  article. 

13 1  have  not  followed  the  criticism  of  Burney’s  book.  I  see  that  some 
articles  approving  it  and  carrying  on  the  demonstration  have  appeared  in  the 
Journal  of  Theological  Studies.  Torrey,  of  Yale,  than  whom  there  is  no  more 
competent  scholar  in  this  field,  at  the  Christmas  meeting  of  the  Society  of 
Biblical  Exegesis  presented  some  cases  which  he  argued  required  the  hy¬ 
pothesis  of  an  Aramaic  original.  I  understand  that  his  criticism  of  Burney  is 
that  the  latter  does  not  demonstrate  strongly  enough.  In  the  American 
Journal  of  Semitic  Languages ,  vol.  39,  p.  232  an  inch-long  book  notice  speaks 
of  Burney’s  book  as  “an  interesting  attempt,’’  etc.,  etc.;  “the  main  thesis 
may  stand"  but  “his  general  conclusions  as  to  authors  and  authority  on 
historic  matters  of  the  composition  will  just  as  surely  fall  in  the  face  of  con¬ 
siderations  other  than  linguistic,  as  admirably  set  forth  by  B.  W.  Bacon  in 
his  The  Fourth  Gospel  in  Research  and  Debate .”  This  reads  like  an  injunction 
against  research  and  debate. 


20 


A  simple  case  in  point  appears  in  8,  44,  where  the  Devil  is 
called  “a  liar  and  the  father  of  it”.  What  is  the  antecedent  to 
the  pronoun?  Rendered  into  Semitic  idiom  the  phrase  would 
appear  as  “the  son  of  the  lie  and  its  father” a  drastically 
satirical  utterance. 

In  11,  54  Jesus  was  walking  iv  tols  ’louScuoig  =  “in  the 
Jews”,  but  translated  “among  the  Jews”.  But  why  not  “in 
Judaea”,  which  word  the  author  well  knows.  The  Peshitto 
Syriac  uses  here  the  idiomatic  phrase,  beth  Iudaye ,  “in  the  house, 
i.  e.,  the  land  of  the  Jews”  (the  Curetonian  Syriac  has  stumbled 
at  the  clumsy  Greek).  Samaria  is  similarly  called  in  the  Syriac 
to  Acts  beth  Shamraye.  For  beth  the  translator  may  have  read 
or  understood  be ,  “in”,  and  so  produced  “in  the  Jews”. 

In  8,  45  we  read:  “But  I,  because  (on)  the  truth  I  speak, 
you  do  not  believe  me”.  The  position  of  “I”  is  remarkable, 
even  in  emphasis.  Now  the  Aramaic  equivalent  of  “because”, 
di,  is  also  the  general  relative  particle.  Read  accordingly:  “But 
I  who  speak  the  truth,  you  do  not  believe  me”. 

The  obviously  most  difficult  passage  in  the  Gospel  is  found 
in  8,  25.  The  Jews  said  to  Jesus,  “Who  art  thou?”  Jesus  said 
to  them  ilrrjv  ap^rjv  on  /cat  XaXco  vpZv.1'  RV  translates  this 
Greek:  “Even  that  which  I  also  spoke  to  you  at  the  beginning”, 
with  the  variant:  “How  is  it  (in  italics)  that  I  even  speak  to  you 
at  all?”  Similarly  WH  by  its  varieties  of  punctuation  allows  two 
interpretations,  the  affirmation  and  the  question.  How  uncertain 
and  absurd  is  the  Greek!  An  intelligible  Aramaic  might  be 
worked  out  thus:  “What  was  at  first  (di  bereshith),  what  (di  = 
represented  by  on)  also  I  am  saying  to  you,”  i.  e.,  I  am  saying 
the  same  thing  as  from  the  first.  Again  the  trouble  would  have 
arisen  over  the  ambiguousness  of  the  relative  particle  di. 

In  12,  49  we  read:  “The  Father  who  sent  me  gave  me  a 
commandment  tl  ei7 rco  Kal  tl  \a\rjcroj,  i.  e.,  “what  I  should 
say  and  what  I  should  speak”.  Rhetorical  parallelism,  character¬ 
istic  of  the  Semitic,  might  explain  this  duplication,  but  the  case 
looks  strikingly  like  a  doublet  in  translation,  to  be  compared  with 
the  innumerable  doublets  in  the  Septuagint. 

I  mention  here  a  peculiar  usage  in  the  Gospel,  rather  to  raise 
the  question  than  to  answer  it.  In  4,  6  Jesus  “being  wearied  by 
the  journey  was  sitting  so  by  the  well”;  and  13,  25:  “That  one 
reclining  so  upon  Jesus’  breast.”  This  double  case  of  ovtcos  has, 


21 


I  think,  deeply  concerned  commentators.  In  the  Peshitto  Syriac 
of  the  first  text  the  place  of  this  adverb  is  taken  by  “to  him  (self)  ”, 
following  a  common  Aramaic  idiom  which  follows  up  certain 
intransitive  verbs  with  an  “ethical  dative”,  e.  g.,  “  sit-for-one’s- 
self”.  If  the  case  occurred  only  once,  I  should  be  inclined  to 
think  that  the  (assumed)  Aramaic  original  of  this  dative  was 
translated  literally  a vtod,  “to  him”,  which  came  to  be  manipulated 
in  the  Greek  into  crura js.  But  it  is  hardly  possible  that  the  same 
error  would  have  been  repeated.  But  an  Aramaic  original  may 
be  found  in  kadu,  —  kad  hu ,  “as  he  it  (he)  was”,  used  often  in 
the  Latin  sense  of  iam.  The  Greek  ovrco s  would  then  be  an 
approximate  one- word  equivalent. 

Above  under  ( b )  an  emendation  in  part  has  been  offered  for 
11,  1.  The  assumption  of  an  Aramaic  original  would  facilitate 
clearing  up  the  text. 


22 


5.  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPEL 

An  immediate  impression  of  the  Gospel  is  its  lack  of  Biblical 
(Old  Testament)  citation  and  its  apparent  indifference  to  the 
Biblical  apologetic  that  marks  most  of  the  New  Testament  books. 
In  WH’s  table  of  Old  Testament  citations  Mark  is  given  7  inches 
space,  Luke  1Q>J,  Matthew  12,  and  John  less  than  3.  The  Law 
is  hardly  cited.  This  absence  of  Biblical  allusion  may  have 
largely  contributed  to  the  current  impression  of  the  “Hellenic” 
origin  of  the  Gospel.  All  the  more  striking  then  is  the  discovery , 
of  the  writer’s  firsthand  and  intimate  knowledge  of  the  Palestinian 
Judaism  of  the  first  century.  Any  Jew,  writing  anywhere  and  to 
whomsoever — a  Paul,  a  Peter,  even  a  Gentile  like  Justin  Martyr — 
could  use  the  Septuagint  and  still  possess  little  knowledge  of  the 
actual  Judaism  of  Palestine.  But  the  Judaic  knowledge  of  this 
book  appears  to  have  been  derived  from  immediate  acquaintance 
and  was  not  simulated  through  booklearning,  even  that  of  the 
Scriptures.1 

I  begin  a  principio.  The  prime  gravamen  of  the  alleged 
Hellenic  origin  of  the  Gospel  lies  in  the  initial  theologumenon  of 
“the  Word,  the  Logos”.  For  long  this  was  sufficient  to  convict 
the  character  of  the  whole  book.  Subsequently — and  so  I  have 
heard  Harnack  express  himself  in  lecture — it  came  to  be  recog¬ 
nized  by  some  scholars  that  the  introduction  of  the  Gospel  is  only 
a  liaison  with  Hellenic  philosophy,  theological  speculation  being 
dropped  thereafter.  However  the  taste  of  the  portentous  Logos- 
idea  has  stuck  to  the  palate  of  many  critics  ever  since. 

In  contradiction  of  this  assumption  I  express  my  unqualified 
conviction  that  the  Logos  is  the  Memra  of  Jewish  theology.  The 


1  My  friend  Professor  Foley  has  called  my  attention  to  a  statement  made 
by  Professor  Burney  in  a  University  Sermon  entitled  The  Old  Testament 
Conception  of  Atonement  Fulfilled  by  Christ ,  preached  in  1920  and  published 
by  the  Oxford  Press,  in  which,  p.  4,  he  asks  “Why  does  he  |the  author  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel)  prefer  to  quote  the  Old  Testament  from  the  Hebrew  rather 
than  from  the  Septuagint?’’  I  cannot  see  that  this  point  can  be  maintained. 
The  evangelist  cites  loosely,  not  as  a  scholar.  The  one  exception  is  the 
citation  of  Zech.  12,  10,  where  the  Hebrew  is  followed  as  against  the  perverse 
translation  of  the  Septuagint.  But  I  have  reached  the  conclusion  from  other 
studies  that  this  Johannine  translation  comes  from  a  Palestinian,  probably 
“pre-Theodotionic”  translation.  The  same  is  probably  to  be  said  of  the 
citation  in  13,  18;  cf.  Rendel  Harris,  Testimonies ,  vol.  2,  p.  75. 

23 


Memra  (“the  word”)  is  the  surrogate  in  the  Targums  for  God  in 
all  his  contacts  with  the  physical  world;  in  his  place  the  Memra 
speaks  and  acts — no  modern  speculation  indeed,  for  it  simply 
replaces  the  Angel  of  the  Lord  of  the  oldest  Biblical  documents. 
No  reader  of  the  Targums  can  be  surprised  at  the  appearance  of 
the  term  in  a  Judaic  document.  In  a  logical  argument  this  notion 
of  the  Logos  can  be  thrown  in  the  scales  only  after  all  the  other 
evidence  can  be  weighed.  It  would  only  make  the  baker’s  dozen. 

The  Logos  occurs  elsewhere  in  the  New  Testament  only  in 
the  intensely  Semitic  Apocalypse,* 2 3  in  which,  19,  13,  the  Rider  on 
the  White  Horse  is  given  the  name,  The  Word  of  God.  Bousset, 
following  the  lead  of  predecessors,  stamps  the  name  as  a  spurious 
alteration — a  fine  example  of  wilful  criticism.  This  apocalyptic 
figure  of  the  militant  Logos  has  its  Judaic  background  in  the 
Book  of  Wisdom  18,  15  ff,  where  God’s  “all-powerful  Word”, 
6  7ravTQ$vva[JMS  c rov  Xdyo?,  is  described  in  epic  fashion  as 
leaping  like  a  warrior,  7toX€/xiot^9,  into  the  midst  of  this  naughty 
world.  The  theologumenon  of  the  Word  is  Biblical,  appearing  in  an 
unrecognized  instance  in  1  Sam.  3,  21, 3  while  the  personification 
of  the  Word  goes  back  into  ancient  Babylonian  religion.4 

In  connection  with  the  Word  are  to  be  noticed  the  Biblical 
“in  the  beginning’’,  v.  1,  and  “tabernacled,”  v.  14,  the  latter 
based  on  the  Old  Testament  idea  of  the  Lord’s  Presence  dwelling 
in  the  temple,  the  later  Shekinah — while  now  it  has  come  in  the 
flesh!  The  preposition  in  7 rpo?  rbv  Oeov  with  the  accusative, 
while  exemplified  in  the  Septuagint,  has  its  exact  equivalent  in 
the  Aramaic  lewdth ,  and  so  the  Syriac  translations  here. 

An  actual  Targumic  expression  appears  in  12,  4,  where  after 
citing  from  Is.  6  the  writer  proceeds:  “These  things  said  Isaiah 
when  he  saw  his  Glory  and  he  spake  about  him.”  “The  Glory 
of  the  Lord,”  yekara  dadonai,  is  the  term  used  in  place  of  “  Yhwh  ” 


8  The  several  philological  correspondences  noted  in  the  course  of  this 

essay  between  the  Gospel  and  the  Apocalypse  argue  nothing  for  common 
authorship;  but  they  add  to  the  demonstration  of  the  Semitic  background 
of  the  Gospel. 

3  “And  the  Lord  again  appeared  in  Shiloh,  for  the  Lord  was  revealed  to 
Samuel  in  Shiloh  in  the  Word  of  the  Lord."  This  is  a  dogmatic  addition 
precising  the  method  of  the  revelation. 

4  See  Zimmern  and  Winckler,  Die  Keilinschriften  und  das  Alte  Testament , 
p.  608,  note  6. 


24 


in  the  Targum  to  Is.  6,  1. 5  It  was  impossible  for  the  later  theology 
to  think  of  a  human  seeing  the  Lord  Himself.  And  the  process 
of  alleviating  the  difficulty  has  already  begun  in  the  Massoretic 
text,  most  manuscripts  of  which  have  substituted  “Adonai”  for 
“Yhwh”,  which  latter  however  is  still  found  in  some  hundred 
manuscripts. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Logos  leads  naturally  to  the  discussion 
of  the  Messianism  of  the  Gospel.  In  this  respect  the  book  is  not 
only  fuller  but  more  explicitly  correspondent  to  the  Judaistic 
notions  than  the  Synoptics.  The  title  “the  Lord”,  6  /cupios, 
which  many  regard  as  an  epithet  of  Gentile  origin  and  so  of  later 
application  to  Jesus,6  appears  only  three  times  in  the  pre-Resur-  , 
rection  narrative  and  six  times  in  the  post- Resurrection  scenes.7 
Withal  the  Gospel  is  deliberately  Messianic  and  so  Judaic  in  its 
conception  of  Jesus. 

There  is  the  unique  etymology  of  “Christ”  =  “Messiah”; 
the  acquaintance  with  the  popular  theories  and  disputations: 
whether  John  is  the  Christ;  that  the  Messiah  should  come  from 
Bethlehem,  7,  42;  the  uncertainty  as  between  the  Christ  and 
Elijah  and  “the  Prophet”,  1,  20 f;  the  contention  over  Jesus 
whether  he  is  the  Prophet  or  the  Christ,  7,  41  f;  compare  6,  14, 
where  he  is  hailed  as  the  Prophet  that  is  to  come  into  the  world. 
Even  the  Messianic  expectations  of  the  Samaritan  woman,  c.  4, 
are  corroborated  by  our  knowledge  of  the  Samaritan  religion, 
which  had  its  Messianic  doctrine  of  a  Ta’eb,  a  Restorer.8  Only 


6  This  Targumic  parallel  is  insisted  upon  by  Rendel  Harris  in  his  Testi¬ 
monies,  vol.  2,  p.  74.  He  adds:  “It  is  almost  the  only  instance  where  the 
Targum  is  cited  in  the  New  Testament.”  The  whole  of  the  chapter,  c.  8, 
“Testimonies  in  the  Gospel  of  John,”  is  pertinent  to  the  present  discussion. 
Of  course  in  the  present  case  “his”  relates  to  “God,”  “Glory,”  like  the  Word, 
is  identified  with  the  Messiah. 

6  See  Bousset,  Kyrios  Christos,  for  this  contention.  As  in  many  other 
cases  of  the  present  argument  there  appears  to  be  prejudice  according  as  the 
subject  is  approached  from  the  Hellenic  or  the  Judaic  standpoint.  The  Old 
Testament  student  naturally  finds  the  genealogy  of  “the  Lord”  as  applied 
to  Jesus  in  the  very  process  of  thought  we  have  just  observed  above,  in  the 
substitution  of  “the  Lord”  for  “Yhwh”,  as  in  Is.  6,  1,  as  equally  the  substi¬ 
tution  of  “the  Glory”,  etc.  The  determined  change  of  word  meant  a  theo¬ 
logical  difference.  But  the  subject  is  too  lengthy  to  follow  here. 

7  4,  1;  6,  23;  11,  2.  The  first  of  these  cases  is  critically  questionable; 
some  MSS  and  the  Syriac  translations  read  “Jesus”. 

8  See  my  Samaritans ,  p.  243  ff.  We  can  trace  the  Samaritan  notion  back 
as  far  as  Justin  Martyr.  See  also,  A.  Merx,  Der  Messias  oder  Ta’eb  der  Samar- 
itaner,  Beiheft  xvii  of  Zeitschrift  f.  d.  altestamentliche  Wissenschaft  (1909), 
who  gives  texts  of  Samaritan  Messianic  hymns  with  an  abstract  of  their 
contents,  and,  pp.  43  ff,  a  discussion  of  the  Ta’eb  doctrine. 

25 


once  do  we  find  the  later  combination,  “Jesus  Christ”,  17,  3; 
otherwise  always  “the  Christ”.  The  final  confession  of  him  is 
that  “Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,”  20,  31. 

Almost  every  one  of  the  Messianic  titles  is  corroborated  in 
the  Jewish  literature.  For  “the  Son  of  Man ”  there  is  the  evidence 
of  Enoch  and  the  Synoptics;  for  “the  Son  of  God”,  Ps.  2  (cf.  the 
application,  Heb.  1,5),  Enoch  c.  105  (if  this  last  chapter  is  original), 
the  Synoptics,  and  2  Esdras  7,  28.  29  (also  14,  9).  For  the  ascrip¬ 
tion  “the  Holy  One  of  God”  there  is  the  Synoptic  tradition, 
Mk.  1,  24.  Only  the  title  “the  Saviour  of  the  world”,  4,  42,  is 
not  so  corroborated.  We  may  compare  Is.  39,  6,  according  to 
which  the  Servant  of  the  Lord  is  made  “a  light  of  the  Gentiles, 
to  be  my  salvation  to  the  ends  of  the  earth” — to  be  sure  hardly 
possible  as  an  allusion  in  the  mouth  of  a  Samaritan. sa 

John  Baptist’s  confession  of  Jesus  as  “the  Lamb  (afivos;)  of 
God  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world,”  1, 29.  36,  has  its  parallel 
in  the  frequent  epithet  for  him  as  “the  Lamb”(apznW)  in 
Rev.,  e.  g.,  5,  6.  8.  12,  etc.  The  symbolism  belongs  to  the  essence 
of  Jewish  apocalyptic;  compare  not  only  the  Lion  of  Judah  but 
also  the  white  Ox  with  great  black  horns,  Enoch  90,  37  f.,  who  is 
without  doubt  the  Messiah.  I  may  note,  without  vouchsafing  an 
opinion,  that  Charles,  ed.  2,  ad  loc .,  following  Goldschmidt,  sees 
in  the  Ethiopic  text  a  perversion  of  its  original  and  reads  “lamb” 
for  “ox.”  The  moment  of  the  atoning  virtue  of  the  Messiah  is 


83  The  title  “Saviour  of  the  world"  was  attributed  to  the  Roman  em¬ 
perors,  first  to  Julius  Caesar;  see  Deissmann,  Light  from  the  Ancient  East , 
p.  369.  But  in  his  limitation  of  treatment  Deissmann  leaves  rather  a  wrong 
impression.  The  title  “Saviour”  did  not  begin  with  the  Roman  empire; 
it  was  distinctly  Oriental,  the  title  to  Julius  having  been  given  by  an  Anatolian 
city,  while  it  goes  back  to  the  origins  of  the  Hellenistic  empires.  The  second 
Ptolemy  and  the  second  Seleucid  had  the  cognomen  Soter,  i.  e.  Savior.  The 
epithet  was  due  to  the  transference  of  Oriental  religious  terms  to  the  deified 
monarchs  of  Hellenism.  I  may  refer  to  a  most  attractive  monograph  by 
Lietzmann,  Der  Weltheiland,  Bonn,  1909;  the  subject  has  been  treated  at 
length  by  Wendland  in  Zeits.  f.  neutest.  IVissenschaft,  1904,  pp.  335  ff.,  and 
his  Hellenistisch-rdmische  Kultur,  pp.  73  ff,  87  ff.  The  title  for  Christ  is  con¬ 
fined  to  the  later  books  of  the  N.  T.,  except  for  the  Lucan  writings:  Luke  2,  1 1 ; 
Acts  5,  31;  13,  23;  n.  b.  documents  of  Semitic  source.  How  far  was  the 
delay  in  the  propagation  of  this  title  due  to  antipathy  to  the  Pagan  usage? 
Such  antipathies  were  very  marked  in  Judaism,  e.  g.,  the  early  abandonment 
of  “Baal”  as  a  title  of  God,  or  the  preference  in  the  LXX  of  Daniel  for  “Lord 
of  heaven”  in  preference  to  the  actual  but  Pagan-sounding  “God  of  heaven.” 
While  I  would  be  the  last  to  press  the  literal  accuracy  of  the  conversations  in 
this  story,  it  may  be  noted  that  it  was  a  woman  in  the  preponderantly  Pagan 
community  of  Samaria  who  used  this  title;  just  as  it  was  in  the  same  commu¬ 
nity  that  the  Apostles  had  their  first  encounter  with  Hellenistic  syncretism. 

26 


illustrated  from  the  story  of  the  Ethiopian  eunuch,  Acts  8,  who 
is  found  studying  the  interpretation  of  Is.  53,  7:  “He  was  led  as 
a  sheep  to  the  slaughter,”  etc.  All  this  is  good  Judaism  of  the 
first  century. 

Probably  most  particularly  Hellenic  sounds  the  epithet  of 
the  Word  as  the  Light,  c.  1.  This  has  been  regarded  as  a  bit  of 
the  Western  intellectualism  and  theosophy;  accordingly  when  it 
is  found  in  Jesus’  self-assertion,  “I  am  the  Light  of  the  world,” 
8,  12;  9,  5,  its  originality  is  denied.  Yet  in  the  Hebraic  document 
of  the  Infancy  History  in  Luke  it  is  a  Messianic  designation, 
based  on  the  Messianically  interpreted  phrase  “a  light  to  lighten 
the  Gentiles,”  Is.  40,  5,  which  is  similarly  treated  in  Acts  13,  47. 
And  we  know  from  a  Rabbinic  source  that  Light  was  a  Messianic 
name.  In  the  classical  Midrash  or  commentary  on  Lamentations, 
Ekhah ,  fol.  36,  col.  2  (Wilna  ed.),  are  listed  some  of  the  names  of 
Messiah:  Shiloh  (Gen.  49,  10),  Haninah  (“mercy,”  Jer.  16,  13), 
Yinnon  (“his  [the  Messiah’s]  name  shall  continue ” — an  obscure 
word,  mystically  treated,  Ps.  72,  17).  To  these  are  added  Rabbi 
Biba’s  dictum  that  “his  name  is  the  Light,  as  it  is  said  (Dan.  2,  22), 
The  Light  dwell eth  with  Him.”  My  friend  Professor  Margolis  has 
called  my  attention  to  the  collection  of  Messianic  interpretations  of 
the  “light”  in  Pesikta  Rabba  (commentary  on  the  lections) ,  at  Is.  60, 
1 ;  of  this  passage  the  hymn  in  Eph.  5,  14  is  a  similar  interpretation. 

There  also  occur  some  subtle  reminiscences  of  current  Jewish 
Messianism.  The  difficult  expression,  “eating  the  flesh  of  the 
Son  of  God”,  generally  interpreted  as  breathing  the  ultra-sacra- 
mentalism  of  a  later  age,  is  illustrated  from  the  Talmud,  where 
we  find  the  expression,  “eating  the  flesh  of  the  Messiah”,  to 
be  explained  as  of  the  appropriation  of  the  Messiah’s  spiritual 
gifts.9  The  statement,  5,  22,  “All  judgment  is  given  to  the  Son 
of  Man”,  is  paralleled  by  Enoch  69,  24:  “The  sum  of  judgment 
was  given  unto  the  Son  of  Man.”  Also  14,  23:  “If  anyone  love 
me  he  will  keep  my  commandment,  and  my  Father  will  love  him, 
and  we  will  come  to  him  and  make  our  abode  with  him,”  may  be 
compared  with  Enoch  c.  105:  “I  and  my  Son  will  be  united  with 
them  forever  in  the  paths  of  uprightness.” 

These  references  are  a  very  casual  collection.  Many  more 
parallels  can  doubtless  be  gathered  from  the  compends  of  John 

9  Sanhedrin  99a;  cf.  Spitta,  Zur  Geschichte  und  Litter  atur  des  Ur  christen- 
turns ,  p.  331,  who  refers  also  to  Weber,  Neue  Beitrage,  pp.  271,  277 . 

27 


Lightfoot,  Schottgen,  Weber,  Edersheim,  Dalman  (Worte  Jesu), 
etc. 

The  absence  of  the  idea  of  “the  Kingdom  of  God”  in  the 
Gospel  is  a  commonplace  of  remark.  The  term  occurs  but  once, 
3,  5,  in  connection  with  the  birth  “of  water  and  blood”.  Per 
contra ,  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  Messianic  title  of  King  is 
given  to  Jesus  by  Nathanael,  1,  49;  that  this  Gospel  alone  knows 
of  the  purpose  of  the  people  to  make  him  King,  6,  15 — a  lurid 
flash  of  the  actual  Messianism  of  Palestine;  that  Jesus  accepted 
the  acclaim  of  the  people  as  “King  of  Israel”,  12,  13,  upon  his 
Paschal  entry  into  Jerusalem;  that  while  Jesus  is  represented  as 
ignoring  Pilate’s  inquiry,  “Art  thou  a  king?”,  18,  37,  by  phrasing 
his  mission  as  that  of  the  truth,  nevertheless  Pilate’s  satirical  title 
for  the  cross,  “Jesus  the  Nazarene  the  King  of  the  Jews”,  is  fully 
insisted  on,  19,  19  ft.  We  must  seek,  it  may  be,  the  personal 
factors  in  the  writer’s  mind  for  his  general  avoidance  of  a  term 
which  he  was  fully  cognizant  of  and  at  times  allowed.  Was  it  that 
he  had  known  the  national  Messianism  down  to  its  dregs,  and  would 
replace  its  phrasing  with  more  spiritual  terms?10  For  him  the 
contrast  was  not  between  the  “kingdoms”,  but  as  between  “this 
world”  and  another  world,  e.  g.,  8,  23,  and  herein  he  was  actually 
expressing  the  current  Jewish  contrast  between  “this  world” 
(ha  (olam  hazzeh )  and  “the  world  to  come”  (ha  (olam  habba).11 


10  The  notion  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  has  had  its  sway  for  the  past  genera¬ 
tion,  largely  under  the  influence  of  F.  D.  Maurice.  But  I  observe  that  some 
of  our  more  “democratic”  theologians  are  stumbling  over  the  idea  of  a  king 
as  most  undemocratic,  and  so  we  may  expect  another  shift  in  the  fashion  of 
religion.  May  there  not  have  been  fashions  of  thought  in  the  Apostolic  Age? 

11  The  preponderant  use  of  “the  world”,  o  Kocr/io<r,  in  this  Gospel  is 
well-known.  Conversely  “aeon”  and  “aeonian”  are  comparatively  rare, 
always  in  the  Biblical  sense  of  time.  In  this  Gospel  “  world  ”  appears  to  replace 
“aeon”,  and  represents  the  current  Jewish  use  of  ‘olam,  not  only  in  the  phrases 
cited  above  (cf.  possibly  Eccl.  3,  11;  Ben  Sira  3,  18;  16,  17),  but  also  in  the 
Palmyrene  dialect  and  in  Syriac,  e.  g.,  Aphraates.  Both  uses  of  lolam  as 
“world”  and  as  “aeon”  or  “eternity”  ran  along  aside  of  each  other.  For 
example,  in  Eccl.  12,  5  “man  goeth  to  his  eternal  house”  beth  ‘olam  (AV 
superbly,  “his  long  home”),  and  so  the  grave  is  still  called  by  the  Jews; 
vice  versa ,  in  Syriac,  e.  g.,  the  Edessene  Chronicle,  death  is  spoken  of  as  a 
departure  “from  the  world,”  men  ‘alma.  Possibly  the  use  of  the  word  in  the 
former  sense  was  Hebraic,  in  the  latter  Aramaic.  There  has  been  an  extensive 
discussion  of  the  word  as  it  appears  in  the  Oriental  religions,  as  antique  as 
“Yahweh  God  of  ‘olam,,}  Gen.  21,  33;  for  this  discussion  Cumont  may  be 
consulted,  Oriental  Religions  in  the  Roman  Empire ,  chap.  5,  with  some  of  the 
bibliography  given  in  note  73.  I  do  not  know  whether  the  point  I  have  made 
about  kosmos  has  been  recognized  by  others;  Bousset,  in  his  otherwise  excel¬ 
lent  treatment  of  aeon ,  Religion  des  Judentums,  ed.  1,  pp.  231  ff,  ignores  it 

28 


There  remains  a  group  of  abstract  philosophic  ideas  which 
have  availed  much  in  clinching  the  superficial  impression  of  the 
Hellenism  of  the  Gospel.  We  may  take  for  example,  “I  am  the 
way,  the  truth  and  the  life.”  The  first  term  of  course  is  Jewish; 
it  is  the  haldkah  of  later  Judaism.  Jesus  announces,  if  you  will, 
that  he  is  the  true  haldkah  as  against  the  Pharisaic  nomism.  The 
two  other  terms  appear  rather  Hellenic.  Y et  we  recall  the  doubt¬ 
less  originally  Aramaic  Story  of  the  Three  Pages  in  I  Esdras  3-4, 
with  its  classical  climax,  “The  truth  is  mighty  and  will  prevail”, 
4,  38,  etc.  The  abstract  idea  of  life,  along  with  that  of  light, 
equally  appears  in  the  Old  Testament,  Ps.  36,  9:  “With  thee  is 
the  well  of  life  and  in  thy  light  shall  we  see  light;”  cf.  Dan.  2,  22, 
cited  above.  In  a  word  it  is  only  gross  ignorance  which  denies 
to  the  Semite  the  capacity  of  abstractions  and  their  expression. 

I  may  note  one  Hebraistic  interpretation  of  an  obscure  word 
that  has  recently  been  proposed  by  Prof.  W.  H.  P.  Hatch.12  It 
is  in  the  passage  16,  8:  “He  will  convict  the  world  of  sin  and  of 
righteousness  and  of  judgment”,  in  which  Hatch  most  reasonably 
proposes  that  “righteousness”  is  to  be  taken  in  the  Hebrew,  as 
well  as  Pauline,  sense  of  “justification,  salvation”. 

n  Harvard  Theological  Review,  vol.  14  (1921),  pp.  103  ft. 


29 


CONCLUSION 


The  end  of  my  argument  is  this:  That  the  Gospel  of  St.  John 
is  the  composition  of  a  well-informed  Jew,  not  of  the  Pharisaic 
party,  whose  life  experience  was  gained  in  Palestine  in  the  first 
half  of  the  first  century,  and  whose  mother-tongue  was  Aramaic; 
and  that  this  conclusion  alone  explains  the  excellence  of  the 
historical  data  and  the  philological  phenomena  of  the  book — 
unless,  indeed,  with  Burney,  we  must  argue  to  a  translation  from 
an  Aramaic  original. 


What  was  in  the  beginning 
what  we  have  heard 
what  we  have  seen  with  our  eyes 
what  we  have  beheld  and  our  hands  have  felt 
about  the  Word  of  Life 

And  the  Life  was  manifested 
and  we  have  seen  and  witness  and  report  to  you 
the  Eternal  Life 
which  was  with  the  Father 
and  was  manifested  to  us 

What  we  have  seen  and  heard 
report  we  also  unto  you 
that  ye  may  have  fellowship  with  us 
and  our  fellowship  is  with  the  Father 
and  with  His  Son  Jesus  Christ 

And  these  things  write  we  unto  you 
That  our  joy  may  be  fulfilled. 


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